Erskine Childers

“ But surely no better material exists in any European country than in this for the production of good mounted riflemen. We have the men, and we have the experience. We are leagues ahead of Germany, where steps are only now being taken to provide the Cavalry with a carbine equal in power to the Infantry rifle; leagues ahead of Austria and France; leagues ahead of Russia, unless since 1905 she has revolutionized her training. And yet we are blind to our good fortune; not only blind but enviously imitative of the errors of foreigners, who in turn are ignorant of our elements of strength. ”

“ If this view were upheld only by the regular Cavalry it would be bad enough, but there is a tendency to uphold it among the volunteers too, so that we daily have the heart-breaking spectacle of men who have not yet come to the point of realizing the tremendous possibilities of the rifle crying aloud like children for a steel weapon. The responsibility for that fatal discontent rests absolutely on the Cavalry. ”

“ Here is the admission, frank and unabashed, that Cavalry, because they are deficient in fire-power, are only formidable to Cavalry, who are equally deficient in fire-power; that nobody cares a snap of the fingers for the lance or sword but those who, choosing to carry those weapons, agree to fear them. Clearly, even this exception is no exception, because one or both parties may by caprice or design break the compact and take to the firearm, which will then “rule the battle-field.” ”

“ How often were great masses held back inactive, without drawing a sabre or firing a shot, while the battle was decided by the Infantry and the guns! How few the enterprises against the enemy’s communications! How few men killed or disabled, even when Cavalry met Cavalry in the mêlée! Can it be said in face of these facts that the devotion to shock-tactics, the constant practice in massed movements, the discouragement of individualism, both in leaders and men, was repaid by results? ”

“ From the capture of Bloemfontein onwards, the nomenclature of mounted troops in South Africa, except as a clue to their race, origin, and professional or unprofessional character, ceases to possess practical significance. There emerges a single military type—the mounted rifleman—the man, that is, who can ride and shoot. Whether in reconnaissance, tactics, or strategy, in defence or offence, in any combination from a patrol to a commando, squadron, brigade, or division, or as a single scout; be he Boer or Briton, the better he can ride, and the better he can shoot, the better soldier he is. ”

“ It is the same soldierly spirit that enables the Infantry soldier to stand the strain of lying out in the open, possibly for hours, under a burning sun or in drenching rain, unable to move hand or foot without being shot at, a strain to which the order to charge the enemy’s position comes as a distinct and welcome relief. And it is the same soldierly spirit which sustains the Cavalry soldier when employed on the important and hazardous duties of scouting and reconnoitring, in the carrying out of which he so often finds himself alone or with quite a small party. ”

“ If, after this short survey of the many fields of action open to horsemen in the future, we ask the decisive question, ‘Which tasks in the future will need to be most carefully kept in mind in the organization and training of this arm in peace-time?’ we shall not be able to conceal from ourselves that it is in the strategical handling of the Cavalry that by far the greatest possibilities lie. Charges even of numerically considerable bodies on the battle-field can only lead to success under very special conditions, and even for the protection of a retreat our rôle can only be a subordinate one. ”

“ I shall prove that the “terror of cold steel,” the objective counterpart of the “Cavalry spirit,” is a myth. Cold steel, no doubt, may seem terrible enough to troops taught to rely on it, but no Infantryman worth his salt feels any terror of the horseman’s steel. Infantry are taught in our own country to despise it, not to fear it. A fortiori mounted riflemen, with the combative power of Infantry plus high mobility, should be taught not to fear it. They are not so taught. ”

“ On manœuvre not strictly connected with any special weapon I only wish to repeat the clear lesson of South Africa and the wise counsel of Bernhardi, that the less Cavalry, when in free and independent movement, are taught to rely on the support of Horse Artillery the better.
I need scarcely say that we should erase the last vestiges of the idea that Cavalry should count on the support of mounted riflemen. If we abolish the arme blanche that distorted and unwholesome idea dies a natural death. ”

“ Not a whit braver than the Cavalry, did not they, simply because they had a good weapon, show more aggressive tackling power in South Africa than the Cavalry? It is cruel to brave men to give them a bad weapon, tell them to found their dash on it, and then to blame them for lack of dash; doubly cruel and doubly absurd to tell them that they are par excellence an arm of offence, as “Cavalry Training” tells them on page 187. They are not a more offensive arm than Infantry or Artillery. Defensive soldiers are a contradiction in terms. ”

“ I challenge the Cavalry spirit so defined because it is a hybrid spirit, impossible to instil and impossible to translate into “balanced” action, even if the steel deserved, as it does not deserve, to be “balanced” against the rifle. I challenge the definition still further, because it is not even an honest definition. Affecting to strike a just balance between the claims of the rifle and the steel, it does not represent the facts of existing Cavalry theory and practice in this country. ”

“ In a strategic raid or a tactical turning movement, in any operation, offensive or defensive, from the action of a patrol to the action of a division, the carriage of troops into the zone of combat is a problem of mobility and secrecy pure and simple. Any weapon which unduly burdens the horse or rider, or renders them unduly conspicuous, is an obstacle to those ends only to be justified by showing that it is indispensable for combats. ”

“ Here is one more implicit betrayal of the steel, one more case of confusion between mobility and combat. Whether you attack the advance-guard, or rear-guard, or flank-guards of a convoy makes no difference to the weapon. If your shock charge is of any use, use it. And the bitter irony of it all is that it was in the attack upon convoys, or columns hampered by a large transport, that the Boers used the “mounted attack” with the most effect. But it was not the mounted attack meant by “Cavalry Training.” It was the rifle charge, as at Yzer Spruit, Kleinfontein, Vlakfontein, etc. ”

“ It was something of a shock to hear Bernhardi saying that Cavalry had been driven from their place of honour on the battle-fields of the plains, but that this arm, whose soul is offence, is to respect unrestrained the emptiness of the modern battle-field is surely a counsel of appalling levity. Mounted riflemen, at any rate, do not carry respect for the dangers of the battle-field to this length. If they had, there would have been no war in South Africa at all. Our foes would have respected the emptiness of the veld from Pretoria to Cape Town. ”

“ Does not the common factor of mobility transcend the factor of weapons? Cannot mounted riflemen “charge,” not, of course, according to that narrow interpretation of the word which restricts it to shock, but in ways equally, if not more, efficacious? And if, aside from the mobility derived from the horse, the dash shown in these and similar operations can demonstrably be shown to have been inspired by the rifle, is not the old Cavalry maxim that dash is derived from the sword seriously shaken? ”

“ It is by no means an easy task. Every war is abnormal in the sense that it differs from every other war. The special peculiarities of the Boer War are on the surface, patent to the most careless observer. But do they affect the point at issue?
At present I only wish to dwell on two broad considerations—personnel and terrain.
Humanly speaking, the Boers were very like ourselves. They were a white race, with white ideals, of European descent, allied to us by blood, and allied, if we are thinking of the German parallel, with the Germans. Their religion was our religion. ”

“ All this proves, I submit, that compromise is impossible. Sword and lance should be abolished, and the training book rewritten in the light of that abolition. With nothing but the rifle to depend on, a new, pure, equality magnificent, and far more fruitful spirit would at once permeate the whole force. There can be no such thing as a hybrid spirit, and the Cavalry know it; hence the re-enthronement of the steel spirit. But inculcate unreservedly the true aggressive fire-spirit, or rather the horse-and fire spirit, and you will get it in a form which would astonish the old European Cavalries. ”

“ This was a fatal precedent for our Cavalry in future wars. Naturally, the effect was to favour centrally organized drives and to discourage that highest form of enterprise which inspires men who use their own eyes to secure opportunities for their own weapons. What is the weapon which not only decides the combat but aids the scout to use his eyes? Everywhere and always, in Manchuria as in South Africa, the rifle.
I touched on the moral factor in my last chapter. The Boers had the highest possible moral stimulus—that of defending their homes and nationalities. ”

“ Nobody on the field would have dreamed of giving the same order to Cavalry, because of the manifest absurdity of demanding this kind of work from troops whose charging efficiency was supposed to depend on remaining in the saddle from first to last and wielding a steel weapon. These limitations, if adhered to, especially with the logical corollary of shock formation, albeit there was nothing to shock, would have rendered the charge a fiasco. If not adhered to, the Cavalry would have been in no better position than unskilled and ill-armed mounted riflemen. ”

“ The philosophic historian will discern that momentous problem already formulating itself, not merely in the minds of statesmen, but, dimly and inarticulately, in the minds of the army, which embodied in an extraordinarily representative manner the civic instincts of the British race. Did we really in our hearts desire such crushing victories as would shatter the spirit of our opponents and lay the foundation for a racial ascendancy, as opposed to a racial fusion, in South Africa? ”

“ Every soldier knows in his heart that no success in action was ever gained on either side but by high individual efficiency in the men, by clever and spirited leading, and by putting into practice ordinary military principles. When we compare the Boers, in the way of legitimate metaphor, to wasps or mosquitoes, do not let us vainly imagine that their tactical methods were no more highly developed than those of that class of insect. ”